Touch Season 2 Interview: EPs Tim Kring and Carol Barbee Discuss The New Season

Touch is coming back to FOX and Tim Kring and Carol Barbee were available to talk about what fans can expect from the new season, including the more dangerous storyline, the serialization of the series and the additions of Maria Bello and Saxon Sharbino. TV Equals was excited to learn all about it; read below to see what you can expect.

What to expect

There are tons of new things to expect from this season of Touch. Kring talked about everything you can look forward to.

“We start the season off very much where the left off at the end of Season One. So, if you watched the season finale, we will pick directly up on that and continue to tell the story that we were telling at the end of the season,” he said. “Again, if you were a loyal viewer of the show, you will have noticed that the show started off in a kind-of standalone nature where every episode [had] a beginning, a middle and end and things were sort-of tied up.”

Kring talked a bit about the serialization of the show as well. “By the end of the season, we had introduced a more serialized engine to the show. We ended the season with Kiefer Sutherland’s character taking his son and running, basically…and coming all the way to California in search of this mysterious girl named Amelia,” he said. “…We sort-of introduced the idea of this mystery girl early in the season, Season One, and by the end of the season, we are in Los Angeles, on the journey to find her. That connects up to Maria Bello’s character, who’s Amelia’s mother and that’s were we pick up the season. In many ways everything changes from the first season to the second season[.]”

Connections will still be made

The show will focus more on danger, including the villanous Guillermo Ortiz (Said Taghmaoui) and Aster Corp, but there will also be the same types of connections that peppered the first season.

“There are still those connections that happen around the world. Some of them are much darker this year because of the story with Said, but it is serialized. Every episode does feed into the next,” said Barbee.

“While the season starts off with Martin on a mission and this danger involved; last year, it wasn’t danger,” she said. “He was sent on these missions by his son that helped people find each other and helped things happen. But it wasn’t necessarily dangerous. By the end of the last season, it was dangerous and he had to go on the run. So, we’ve got that ball rolling downhill. He’s on the run, it’s dangerous, people are after them. But then, those connections…start to happen again. So that part of the series did not get lost.”

Having Sutherland on Touch

“It’s an advantage to have someone who has that [action side] in his wheelhouse,” said Kring about working with Sutherland. “This character was always designed to be an Everyman who was put in extraordinary circumstances and forced to become much more of an action kind of guy than Jack Bauer ever was. In other words, [Jack’s] backstory was much less of an ordinary guy. He was sort-of built to be that guy. This guy was not built to be that guy. He was a reporter, a family man, but he’s thrown into these extraordinary circumstances [.]”

Filming challenges

“Well, you know… because we cram a lot of story into one episode, it’s always challenging to make a show. Every show has it’s own challenges, said Kring about the types of challenges that occurred during the filming of Season Two of Touch. “But I have to admit that this year was much less challenging by being [in Los Angeles]. The kids in the show, David [David Mazouz, who plays Jake] and Saxon, who plays Amelia, they’re both under 16-years-old, so because of that, we’re limited by how much time we can actually film with them and they have to be in school for a certain number of hours…so whenever you have children playing a major role, you always have those challenges of dealing with that.”

Kring also discussed the filming of the show. “We tried to put as much production value on the screen as possible, so…Los Angeles is sometimes difficult location-wise because people have gotten used to the fees that are paid to park trucks and all that kind of stuff. That’s why you see a lot of production leaving Los Angeles because it’s expensive to live here. So we have the same challenges everybody else does.”

Touch promises excitement

Audiences are going to be highly intrigued by this season. “I think the audience is going to be thrilled,” said Barbee. “I think it’s a real page-turner, it’s sort of a thrill ride this year. You’re watching Kiefer Sutherland, who people to love to watch on a mission, you’re watching him on a mission. He has a great storyline. I think people are going to really hook in and enjoy it and take the ride.”

Viewer loyalty

Kring said viewers are going to be really rewarded for their patience and loyalty.

“I can’t really stress enough that the loyal viewer of last season will find this very seamless because there has been such a natural progression on the story and especially towards the end of last season,” he said. “All of those things that [fans] were rewarded for their loyal viewing…all those sorts of Easter Eggs start to show up about Aster Corp and the 36 chosen ones. All of that mythology gets fleshed out in a really big way in the second season. You’re very much rewarded [for] having been there from the beginning.”

The two-hour season premiere of Touch will air on FOX February 8 at 8/7c.

About The Author

Monique Jones is a freelance entertainment writer who also runs Moniqueblog.net, a site analyzing how race and culture are perceived in American entertainment. She has been published on ShockYa, Racialicious, Topless Robot and more.